Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, February 6, 1993 TAG: 9302060042
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KILEY ARMSTRONG ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
INSIDE WELFARE SYSTEM: `I CEASED TO BE'
THE MYTH of welfare lovers wasn't borne out, says a $110,000 civil servant who tried to get a personal feel for an often-impersonal program.
Masquerading with wigs and a fake identity, the city's welfare commissioner slogged through her own, unwieldy bureaucracy in pursuit of often-elusive change.
Shedding her natty business suits for nondescript jeans and sweat shirts, Barbara Sabol had a mission: infiltrating the system that serves 1 million poor New Yorkers.
The $110,000-a-year boss of a $6 billion-a-year agency used a false birth certificate, Social Security card and mail drop to spend nine months off and on blending with hordes of clients in shabby welfare offices and observing the harried workers struggling to serve them.
Sabol said Friday she'd wanted to view the system "like our clients experienced it" - with one exception: "I always recognized that, at any point in time, I could stop."
She tried to empathize as she impersonated the city's downtrodden, who often graciously volunteered to teach this newcomer the ropes:
At one office, she was identified by Zip Code. "I said, `I have a name.' It didn't matter.
"I ceased to be," she said.
Other offices lacked privacy: Names were blared over a speaker.
She was sent to the wrong line for 90 minutes, and once to the wrong address.
She was scolded and mocked by a welfare worker who denied the office had made a mistake.
She was thwarted in her repeated attempts to get full-time work.
She saw cockroaches scurry by in overcrowded offices with broken furniture.
Still, Sabol praised the majority of the 29,000 welfare workers and said she wouldn't discipline those who misdirected her.
Sabol worked the system from February 1992 through October, with Mayor David Dinkins' approval. She returned all the benefits to the city.
She said she revealed her undercover journey because of renewed national debate over welfare policy.
"You hear many, many times about the myth of the welfare client: If you gave them a job, they wouldn't work," she said. "What they said to me is, `I want to get a job.' "
Sabol said she emerged with some "very poignant" memories of the people she's paid to serve:
One woman, "clearly trying to fade into the woodwork," turned out to be a teacher who had fallen on hard times.
A long-homeless man, competing for a meager room of his own, couldn't locate his caseworker for his urgently needed check. "You could feel this man's anguish," said Sabol.
She steered him toward a "really nice" supervisor and was rewarded with a heartfelt "God bless you, sister!" when he got his check.